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Mom to Gabriel (born in December 2006), Josephine/Josie (born in December 2008) and Sebastian (born in May 2012), attorney (but staying at home for now), wife to a consultant (Josh), and lover of Halloween, living in a suburb of Boston and enjoying the nutty world of blogging.

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

This Monday marked the beginning of one of my least favorite medical aspects in pregnancy- the cervical checks.

Ugh.

I guess some people weather these checks easily without screaming and crawling backwards off the paper covered table, but I am not one of those folks. I find any checking in that vicinity to be excruciatingly painful, to the point that I have been dreading it for weeks and have considered taking pain medication in advance of a visit. Okay, just Tylenol, but still.

I hoped to myself on Monday morning that perhaps I'd exaggerated the whole event in my mind, but no such luck. It was very not fun, and to make matters worse, I didn't even get a teensy tiny bit of dilation to be happy about. I am 0% dilated. Nada. Nothing. I don't know why I'm surprised since it took me 40 weeks, 3 days, and 7 hours of pitocin to get me to one stinking centimeter. In a way, I'm relieved because my mom doesn't arrive until December 14th, and also I'm clearly not prepared to have this baby, but seriously, just a little progress would have been nice.

In preparation for the start of the cervical checks, Sunday night saw me contorting into strange positions in the bathroom, trying to deal with the bikini line situation. It wasn't pretty- neither the bikini area or the 36 weeks and 3 days preggo bending every which way trying to access that area. I used this to deal with the situation, and while I'm normally a HUGE fan and I've been using it for about a year now, it was shockingly more painful while pregnant. Maybe my pain tolerance just goes down in pregnancy? Or maybe I'm just a wimp? Who knows.

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I deliver the baby before I have to tackle the area again. 36 weeks is one thing. If this belly gets any bigger, I'm going to have to call in the husband reinforcements to assist me, and nobody wants that.

I hear you on this...I think my ob called it a stretch and sweep or search and rescue or something outrageous like that. And while I appreciated the efforts to "get things moving" the couple of times I had it I felt like she was up to her elbow doing god knows what! I feel ALL your pain! And with the grooming...you are a far better woman than me - when I couldn't see over the tummy things just went to the wall. Months later when I could see over the stretch mark ridden flabby gut I took matters into my own hands. Oh it's SO glamourous! Take care

I always hated having doctors "rooting around" in my nether regions while pregnant. And any other time, actually. I think that everything's so much more sensitive when you're pregnant, though -- you have very little fat left as a barrier over the distended stomach so the belly is always a sensitive spot, but "down there", you're preparing for birth, so it's natural that the area would be more sensitive.

Oh, and are we going to see belly pics this time? I loved seeing your progress with Gabe over the weeks. It was like getting to know him a little before he arrived.